State Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz peppered Gov. Neil Abercrombie with questions this afternoon over his plan to make money for education needs off of underutilized school lands through private-public partnerships.

The governor said Senate Bill 1096 will give the Hawaii Community Development Authority the responsibility to facilitate the redevelopment of public school lands.

The DOE supports a different bill that uses a different mechanism other than HCDA to make the projects happen.

But testimony at the Senate Education Committee meeting today indicated that there may be room for compromise if lawmakers remove a provision in the governor’s bill that creates a new board to grant final approval.

Dela Cruz went back and forth with Abercrombie over the makeup and qualifications of whatever board approves the projects. He was concerned that board members might be casting votes on projects but not live in the district where the project will be.

Abercrombie said he considered the board’s vote as more of an “affirmation than origination.” He said the projects would be community-driven, and HCDA would just act as the mechanism to make them happen.

There seemed to be general support for the bill’s overall intent. But as Senate Education Chair Jill Tokuda said, the devil is in the details.